Handmade. Local. Paleo.

Appetizers

You might be wondering where I have been the last 9 months… and to answer that in one word, I have been BUSY! There have been a boatload of changes: bought a house, had to buy a new car, started a new full time job while still maintaining two other part time jobs. It’s been a little hectic to say the least. But I am happy to be back and although I haven’t had the time to make many new recipes myself, I wanted to share some that I have enjoyed making and munching on while I’ve been MIA.

These biscuits are brought to you by The Urban Poser whose blog I peruse quite often to find tasty recipes! So without further ado:

Switching over to the paleo lifestyle from the Standard American Diet can be overwhelming and challenging in many ways. It starts with replacing the classic boxed breakfast (cereal, oatmeal, etc), then removing the bread from your sandwich for lunch, and no pasta for dinner! It all seems ludicrous when you first approach it. After slowly switching over to real foods, the shock goes away and you realize that life DOES go on without processed foods, you suddenly stop craving them and actually start to find all that junk pretty unappetizing. There are, however, some things that you find you just can’t seem to stop missing. For me, one of those things was my grandmother, Dee Dee’s pumpkin bread. We would have it every year for thanksgiving and she would even make us each our own loaf to be cherished and consumed for as long as it would last.

My family has been hugely supportive of my lifestyle choices and have even taken the time to learn more about getting healthy through eating real foods. Each year they seem to switch out more junk for more real foods, primarily eat gluten free, and welcome my eating habits with open arms. Although thanksgiving is still a ways away- I cannot wait to bring my paleo form of Dee Dee’s pumpkin bread to the table and see how it holds up to “the real thing”. I have a feeling everyone will be pleasantly surprised by how amazing it came out!

Without further ado, here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

2 2/3 cups palm sugar

2 cups pumpkin

1 2/3 cups coconut flour

1 2/3 cups tapioca flour

4 eggs

2/3 cups shortening

2/3 cups water

2 1/8 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

1 1/2 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cloves

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

1/3 cup chopped pecans

2/3 cup raisins, soaked for 10min in warm water

Coconut oil, for greasing

Instructions:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees

-In a large mixing bowl cream together the shortening and coconut sugar

-Add the eggs, pumpkin and water to the mixture and whisk to combine

-Sift the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix well

-Stir in the nuts and raisins

-Grease a large loaf pan with coconut oil and add the bread mixture to the pan

-Bake for 1 hour or until the bread passes the toothpick test

-This bread is great heated up and slathered with some grassfed ghee, YUM!

On Sunday-Funday I didn’t mention these amazing fries that we made because I figured that they deserved a post of their own! I would definitely recommend making these as an appetizer if your having company over, as they are sure to please a crowd! How can you go wrong with anything wrapped in bacon, really. Without further ado: